And The Journey Continues...

I realized I never wrote a final blog for my time at the internship. The end of my time there was pretty much a whirlwind but I will do my best. The last couple of months that I was there our daily schedule pretty much got thrown out the window because the Holy Spirit fell in a new and exciting way. What does that mean exactly? It’s hard to really explain but basically the power of the Holy Spirit became so strong that when people prayed for other people, they got healed. And we’re talking all kinds of healing- physical as well as emotional and heart wounds. This started in November and they are still having the awakening meetings every Wednesday- Saturday from 6 pm to midnight. There’s an article that does a much better job of describing it for those of you that are interested.
http://www.ihop.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000067211#content

The awakening was interesting. There was a lot of stuff happening that I was unfamiliar with and had never experienced before. I’ve had certain things that I have been praying for and several times I’ve wondered if my expectations of God are too high and what I’m asking for is ridiculous. But during the awakening, everything that I’ve been praying for and crying out for happened. Not to me, but it happened to other people. I go back and forth on thinking that asking for a hug from the Lord is silly but there were several testimonies of people who said they felt the tangible arms of God around them. It’s possible! One of the things that I’ve also been crying out for is to “feel” God. Everyone always talks about the presence of the Lord and when they say they feel Him I always ask what it feels like. I’ve realized it’s more than just feeling His presence that I want though. I want to receive His love for me and know that I know that I know that He loves me. A lot of what was happening was that God was breaking into hearts and setting them free from years of lies and wounds and rejection and self hatred. When this happened, people would finally feel the love of the Father for the first time. Where it was just head knowledge before, it finally became real in their heart. That’s what I have been crying out for- God just move it from my head to my heart. I always felt like God could break in and in an instant like the verse says His perfect love could come in and cast out all fear. And it was happening! Every time someone got up and gave a testimony then they would pray for people. If a girl got up and described how she felt the love of the Father for the first time and it was real to her heart then they would ask people if that sounds like you raise your hand and people will pray for you. I stood up every time for prayer and it never happened. Listening to testimonies was so frustrating! I would hear things that God did to other people and it would be exactly what I have been crying out for. Now it wasn’t just pie in the sky ideas, He was really doing it. When people would say what happened to them I would just sit there and cry going God that’s exactly what I’ve been praying for and look you’re doing it. You can do it. Why aren’t you doing it in me? There was one particular testimony that got me the most. One girl said that she had never felt the love of the Lord and when people would pray for her in the past she would just start crying. The people that were praying thought that since she was crying that she must have been feeling something. But she said her tears were actually tears of longing and wanting it to happen so bad but it never would. I even stood up for prayer after her testimony thinking this is it… that’s so my story…and then nothing. Now don’t get me wrong. There’s no way I spent 6 months in the presence of God and didn’t walk away different. Plus, I got baptized! I have no doubt that God did a huge work in me in lots of different ways, but I was so sure that at the end of the 6 months I was going to come home confident in love. I was going to feel the love of the Lord finally and nothing else was going to matter. And it didn’t happen. It’s been quite a wrestle and I’ve had to tell God over and over even if you never break in and even if I never feel you, I’m still gonna love you. I’m still gonna sit for hours in the prayer room and sing to you and tell you how beautiful you are because you’re worthy of my praise. Something inside me tells me that even if I never feel you, you’re worth it all.

So what has the Lord been showing me and speaking to me about? My eyes. Before I left for IHOP I got an eye infection and the doctor said it was because of my contacts so I needed to order new contacts. Now that I don’t have eye insurance it’s pretty expensive and I was just talking to God one day and I half-jokingly said, ya know, if you just healed my eyes and gave me 20/20 I wouldn’t have to worry about all this. But I kinda laughed it off. Well when the awakening first happened, one girl stood up and gave her testimony and she was saying that after someone prayed for her, her sight was blurry so she took off her glasses and could see perfectly. God healed her eyes! Now what I thought was just a funny “that would be cool if”, God has shown that He can do and is actually doing now, not just in Bible times. There have been several more testimonies of people receiving 20/20 vision since the awakening’s been going on as well. Over the course of my time at IHOP, different people would come up and pray for me and on 4 or 5 occasions total strangers who didn’t know me at all prayed about me being a “seer” and prayed that my eyes would be opened. Then when I got home, I was meeting with one of my friends and she asked me if I felt like I got any gifts from the Lord while I was up there. I didn’t really know how to answer so I told her the thing about people praying over me and calling me a seer. She got excited and then told me she had a book for me about that. I thought that was pretty cool. Then the next time I met with her the following week, she gave me the book and said that every day since we had met, during her quiet time, every scripture that the Lord would show her had to do with being a seer and she showed me all the verses. And she says it keeps coming up in her quiet times so we’re both praying about what all that means. Then one night I met with a group of ladies that a friend told me about to pray and again they didn’t know me at all and just prayed what they felt from the Holy Spirit and almost all of their prayers were about my physical eyes and the eyes of my heart. I don’t know what it means to be a seer. From what I’ve read it sounds like basically you can see into the spiritual realm and God may give you dreams and visions of heavenly things or angels. This hasn’t happened yet and I’m more in the seek it out and get more information stage but if it’s true, it sounds really exciting! I’ve been listening to this cd by Corey Russell and it’s called Eyes Opened and every time I listen to it my spirit gets stirred up. He keeps talking about how there is an all out assault on the eyes of prophets and seers. We were created to gaze on real beauty and have our eyes captivated and fascinated. We are seated in heavenly places and we are meant to see into the spirit realm. We are in this world but not of it. But we’ve gone so long without experiencing these things that we’re just willing to settle. We’re so easily entertained. One of my favorite lines he says on his cd is we’re so stuffed on PG movies and good things, that we have no appetite for great things, for real things. We are a bored generation and we’ve lived so long in this way, we don’t even know that we’re missing something. I’ve asked God since I’ve been home to open my eyes to see what He wants me to see while I watch tv and I have been shocked by what I see. Shows that I used to watch and find really funny, now I watch and am amazed by how inappropriate it is. There’s sex, or sexual innuendo on almost every show, even family shows just on regular tv. And the only thing I can think of is it’s only going to get worse. My pastor did a sermon just recently on the signs of the end times and one of the parts is talking about how darkness and evil is going to increase. He was saying it is hard to measure something like that but he talked about movie ratings and how they’ve changed over the years and what used to not be allowed to be shown. Wow has it changed. If you get a moment you should listen to his sermon. It was very eye opening and there’s a link under “people get ready.” I’m in this interesting place of being in holy discontent and it’s a strange place to be in. Sitting down in front of the tv is no longer an escape for me, just a reminder that there’s more. As with everything with the Lord it’s a journey and I’m sure I’m only at the beginning but I feel like the Lord has me in a place of what if. What if I choose not to watch that movie or turn off that tv show? What if there’s more? What if turning off those legitimate pleasures opens me up to things that I can’t even fathom? What if not watching that CSI episode causes me to be open to dreaming about God and not have nightmares? What if there’s really more and I really can see it with my very own eyes? What’s interesting about the awakening is that God seems to be doing in the natural what He wants to do in the spiritual. He’s opening eyes and ears in the natural because that’s what He wants to do in the spiritual. He wants to give us eyes to see and ears to hear what the Spirit is saying. I’m contending for my eyes in the natural. I’ll let you know when He heals my eyes! =)

Coming back to Katy has been really hard. I already knew the transition from my protective bubble at IHOP wasn’t going to be easy, but on top of that I came home to my biggest fear being my actual reality. I can honestly say that this last year has been more painful and confusing than anything else I’ve ever experienced. I only thought my heart had been through a lot before. I’ve yelled at God and asked Him why it had to happen this way. What was the point? More than anything I feel like He just played a mean joke on me. I feel like He said I’m gonna give you all these amazing people that you are going to open up your heart to and this amazing job and everything is finally going to fall into place like you want it to, and then bam! I’m going to take it all away. But at the same time, I know that's not His character. I’ve gone through a season of death and mourning what I thought my life was going to look like and the people and new family I thought were going to be a part of it and I think that’s been the hardest part. I don’t understand why things happened the way they did. But I know that He is good and kind and has my best interest in mind. God's leadership over my life is perfect, even when it doesn' t make sense. Everything happened the way it did for God’s greatest glory and to get everyone that has been involved to the place where God wants each of us to be. While I know the truth in my head, we all know that moving it to the heart takes some time. It gets a little easier each day. But the thing is, it’s not about me anyway. I exist so that Jesus will have the preeminence and God will get the greatest glory. I was listening to the FCF service on Sunday and the message was so good! The guy was talking about how as Christians we “sell” Jesus as the way to make yourself happy. Most of the time, we worship Him and praise Him because of things He’s done for us. He talked about the living creatures that are forever around His throne. God has never touched their circumstances. He’s never given them a promotion or lots of money or taken things away from them. They worship Him simply because of who He is. They see Him and Him alone in all of His glory, not what He can do for them, and all they can do is cry HOLY! He asked some really hard questions. He said what are you in this for? What did you move to Kansas City for? If all the cameras left and you were the only person left in the prayer room would it still be worth it? Would you still be here? If you never have a huge ministry and God never promotes you is it still worth it? Then the one that really got me was this one- if you never get the breakthrough is He still worth it? I just started crying and I realized that my answer is yes. Whether I ever get the breakthrough I want, whether I ever “feel” Him, He’s worth it simply because of who He is. I just want Jesus!

So where is this journey taking me next? Back to KC! Before I came home I had pretty much decided that I wanted to go back and go to school up there which would have been the last thing I would have ever imagined I would do because I don’t think I’m smart enough for Bible college. (I do realize this is a lie) The internship was so amazing and I felt like I learned so much but I felt like the 6 months was training wheels. I’m still so new in the Lord and I don’t know the Bible that well and I feel like I still need so much more. I think FSM is a good place to start. The first 2 years are kinda like core classes so I figure I’ll at least do 2 years and then kinda see where I am. But who knows, I may decide after a semester that it’s not for me after all and my plans may change, or maybe I'll go for 4 years and declare a major. Sometimes God tells you to do something and other times He asks you to make a choice. I feel like I’m in a place right now of God going what do you want to do Amy? Do you want to stay in Katy and be an intercessory missionary with the Katy prayer room? I will bless it. Do you want to go to IHOP and go to school and go back on nights? I will bless it. It’s not about IHOP versus Katy because basically I would be doing the same thing whether I was here or there, but the school is there. Plus I get to go back on nights there. I’ve never made a decision based on what I wanted to do. It has always been based off what I think others want me to do. For the first time in my life I’m making a decision based on what I want to do and as scary as it is to pack up and move, it’s also really exciting. I can’t guarantee I’ll come back to Katy, and I can’t guarantee I won’t. There have been several words spoken over me about being called to the nations and rebuilding Israel and I don’t know if that means I will actually go to another country and be a missionary or if it means I will sit in a prayer room somewhere and pray it in. I’m done planning my life. Every time I thought I knew where my life was going and could see what my future looked like, it didn’t happen that way. So now I’m taking it step by step, and my next step in this journey is KC. I have no idea what my future looks like and I absolutely hate that, but I’m letting go and trusting God that His will, not mine, will be done in my life. So the journey continues…hopefully it will get less bumpy soon.